My Life in an Interracial Marriage and Family ~ It's been 25 years of fun; learning, growing, laughing & crying with each other. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it!

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Nobody is Born a Bigot.....

This post actually came to mind because just the other day one of my friend's posted a comment from her granddaughter on Facebook. Her granddaughter asked her what she "was." Grandma said, "You are a girl" honey. Her 3 year old granddaughter laughed and said, "No, am I black or white?" Her granddaughter happens to be black, white, and Mexican, so she proceeded to explain this to her. How interesting that a 3 year old already notices that her skin color is different from Mom and Dad's. The great thing is, by having these open discussions about being multi-racial it just becomes a fact, like saying the sky is blue. It just is blue, and she just is multi-racial. I have never understood racism. To this day, and after all I have gone through with my husband and daughter in regards to racism, (I could write a book on that alone) I still don't get it. How do you choose to hate someone based solely on the color of their skin? Did they do something horrible to you? Do they treat others badly? Where does this hate come from? If someone commits a crime against you and they happen to be black, are you angry at that person because they are black? No, you are angry because of what they did to you, not because of the color of their skin. If every child, that was born to every parent, starting today, was taught to like or dislike someone for the person they are vs. the color of their skin, racism would be erased. Just like that. Nobody is born a bigot...racism is taught.

2 comments:

Maddie I figured I would respond to your latest comment from yesterday's post on today's post because it was so relevant. I can't believe that a friend of yours back home feels that way about Obama. So sad to me. It re-iterates the fact that bigotry is taught! It is one thing to have differing politics but a whole other thing to be racist about it. Just amazing and shocking to me.

Girl..you haven't lived in the south if you think that is surprising. There probably is an uproar in Santee also.I am not convinced Santee has changed. When I bought my first house in 1990, Santee was one of the communities I could afford. I bought the house in summer not quite sure of the school the kids would be attending. I drove through the school grounds of Santana and Santee Elementary They looked great and I was impressed that the elementary school actually had grass. All of the ones the kids went to in Clairemont had sand/dirt playgrounds. Anyway, we lived in subsidized apartments ( the boys refer to them as the "projects". in Clairemont. My kids played with everyone. Well...first day of school in Santee I went to pick up Ryan from kindegarten. When the class let out there was a virtual sea of all white kids. I was shocked. In Matt's graduating class there were about four black kids. Stunning for 1994.